I♥CC: Rice is Nice – Aromatic Yellow Rice~

I’ve missed a few weeks, but am able to get back to some planned cooking again this week.  I♥CC continues to celebrate Madhur Jaffrey, and our theme this week is “Rice is Nice.”  It’s time to choose one of those recipes I’m not sure if I’ll be comfortable with…  I selected Jaffrey’s Aromatic Yellow Rice from her Indian Cookingbook.

The first step was rinsing the rice, soaking it briefly and adding in the aromatics…and the yellow of course!  This recipe called for tumeric, whole cloves, bay leaves and a cinnamon stick.  Fiddle.  I was out of stick cinnamon, so rather than use powdered, I opted to throw in several cardamom pods.  The two spices are similar, and it worked fine.  I chose to serve this with a shrimp recipe I’m going to be quiet about, but it was really good!!

The rice is most definitely YELLOW!! The rice was also definitely aromatic.  We were both surprised that the rice had little flavor for all the aroma and color.   Hubby didn’t care overly much for the rice, but ate it nonetheless.  He expected more flavor.  I’ll try the recipe again with some spicy dal, and I’ll bet it will go fine.  That’s what this is all about anyway.  Getting us to stretch our minds and palates…try new things, and see where they fit best for each of us.  We knew going into this that we’d be skeptical!  LOL!  Still…I haven’t found a total wash-out recipe yet!

Come back and join us next week when we spice it up a notch with “Foods to Warm you Up.”  That could be anything from a spicy soup, to something roasted and hearth-warming.  Let’s see what the group comes up with!